Sitting here watching a two-hour NHL Network show on the history of the Boston Bruins, so of course it’s gotten me in a nostalgic mood. Loved the black and gold growing up, and it’s a great show if you haven’t seen it. Just good hockey history in general.

Seeing all the Ray Bourque highlights in the second half of the show brought out even more nostalgia, and the amazing realization that I still forget sometimes – and maybe you do too: the guy played his final year and a quarter in Denver. I really can’t even believe we saw him here as a member of the Avalanche, and it’s really humbling to have covered his final NHL season – and we all know how it ended.

A few Bourque memories that come to mind:
– I’ve mentioned it before, but one of the first things I remember was literally being shocked at the size of the man’s thighs. I’m telling you, it was freaky. They were HUGE. it was like you were seeing them in an amusement park funny mirror or something.

-Having a couple of adult beverages with him at the Westin Harbour Castle in Toronto the night he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Yes, I’m a lucky guy.

– Oh, and how about this for a scene: Jim Matheson, who is in the “media wing” of the Hockey Hall of Fame, had a couple of passes into the “private” part of the Hall, before the public ceremony honoring the inductees the year Bourque went in. He gave me one of them. So, there I am in the back, where all the guys with HOF jackets are mingling in a reception. I’m walking around, and who do I see in a corner, talking amongst themselves: Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe. I’m standing a couple feet away, thinking it’s a dream.

– Bourque getting real mad at me in the locker room, after I wrote a story that kinda sorta detailed an injury he had in the the playoffs against Detroit in 2000. The Avs had a “lower body” explanation, and I had a “knee” explanation.

– The day before Bourque returned to play in Boston for the first time, in 2001, flipping a rental car and landing upside down in a ditch in New Hampshire, and tunneling my way out through the snow the car was buried in.

– That slap-shot goal Bourque scored in Game 3 against New Jersey in the ’01 Cup Finals, the one that kept rising until it hit the top of the net behind Martin Brodeur in a key win.

– Holding off a couple of days in reporting he’d retire after he won the Cup, as a favor to all involved (and not wanting to have him get mad at me again).

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

A few hockey links I enjoyed of late:

– Interesting debate at ESPN.com [1]about Dallas maybe having seller’s remorse about not trading Brad Richards. My opinion: It’s a damned-if-they-did, damned-if-they-didn’t argument. If they trade Richards, fans will say they quit on their season. Now that it looks like Dallas won’t make it, it’s easy to say “they should have traded him.” But it’s true – there is probably much gnashing of the teeth in Big D right now, because it doesn’t look good that Richards will be back there.

– Minnesota Star-Tribune writer Michael Russo breaks down [2]the late-season breakdown of the Wild. And I thought I was negative.

– Funny parody[3] of the NHL awards voting process from Down Goes Brown.